Rephrasing Your Doubts as Statements of Faith

Last Sunday when we looked at the strategy of Flipping Doubt, we worked with the idea of rephrasing doubts as statements of faith. Since we worked through those rather quickly, it wasn’t easy to catch all of them and make notes. Here are some of the doubts/objections we used and some suggestions for how they might be rephrased.

Habakkuk’s Doubt

Doubt/Objection

What Habakkuk seems to believe is…

“How long shall I cry for help, and you will not hear?”

God doesn’t listen to his people’s prayers.

“Why do you make me look at iniquity?”

God is forcing me to look at sin.

“Why do you idly look at wrong?”

God is casually looking at sin and being lazy about it.

Our Doubts

Doubt/Objection

What I seem to believe is…

“I have asked Jesus to save me, but I’m not sure I believed fully, and I have doubts.”

The power of Jesus to save me depends on the strength of my faith.

“I have asked Jesus to save me, but I’m not sure I was sorry enough for my sin and question my salvation.”

Jesus can’t (or won’t) save me unless my repentance is absolutely perfect.

Doubt/Objection

What I seem to believe is…

“It’s narrow-minded and arrogant to think Jesus is the only way to God.”

Open-mindedness must be preserved at all cost.

All claims of exclusivity are inherently evil and must be rejected.

“How can a good God ordain, or allow, pointless suffering and evil?”

If I cannot see the purpose in evil, it must be pointless.

My standards of good are adequate enough by which to measure God.

“I can’t believe a book [the Bible] full of magic disproved by science.”

No supernatural cause for any natural phenomenon is possible.

There cannot be a God who does miracles that defy natural laws.

For a more complete discussion of some of the faith assumptions behind intellectual doubt, I would recommend Tim Keller’s A Reason for God.

By Ben Arnold